Published writing

Our story begins with me, Gwen Smith. I am a 16-year-old teenager living in the most creepy town in the USA. Back to the story, it takes place in Braywood. It starts with me looking in our cellar.
I walked down the stairs, each one creaking as pressure was applied to it. I looked at all of the moving boxes and puffed out a big sigh. I was hoping it would be in one of the top boxes. As...

Aurum always felt out of place. Even while trekking with her classmates in a breathtaking forest, whose name she couldn't remember, her spirit was wandering away. As she tried to catch up with the crowd that had left her behind, she watched in awe as an alluring silver and green butterfly came out of nowhere. It slowly circled around her before landing on her thin and lean shoulder. She was intrigued by its beauty but the butterfly fluttered away as...

I heard the news that morning. More than half the nation was in mourning because the King of Xavia had passed away in the night. In other words, my father passed away.
The king's guards had arrived at our door at around six. They took me into the kitchen and told me what happened. It had been in his sleep. The doctors were called and tried to do everything they could but it was too late. His heart had...

James Dawson’s first thought was They look roomier from the outside. He was referring to caskets in general, specifically the one entombing him, which was large, (for a casket, which means rather small for anything else) expensive, made of mahogany with a thick velvet lining, and cold.
More accurately, the dirt around it was cold—Mr. Dawson had been buried on a cold fall day, necessitating use of a backhoe to dig his burial site. Because he had been buried...

I looked out the window of the attic and saw the clouds turn gray and the trees moving in the uncontrollable lashing of the wind. My heart began to race, and the sound of my fast beating heart filled my head. At that moment, I knew that something was wrong. Really wrong.
My mom seems to know what I feel whenever I need her to. And yeah, I do get irritated and frustrated with her sometimes, but don’t we...

I heard the news that morning. More than half the nation was in mourning because the King of Xavia had passed away in the night. In other words, my father passed away.
The king's guards had arrived at our door at around six. They took me into the kitchen and told me what happened. It had been in his sleep. The doctors were called and tried to do everything they could but it was too late. His heart had...

I heard the news that morning. More than half the nation was in mourning because the King of Xavia had passed away in the night. In other words, my father passed away.
The king's guards had arrived at our door at around six. They took me into the kitchen and told me what happened. It had been in his sleep. The doctors were called and tried to do everything they could but it was too late. His heart had...

Alice Currie bit her lip and tried her best to keep from tapping her foot as Mrs.Blois's keen eyes scanned her coffee- stained resume. She knew her recommendations had been glowing, and her degrees numerous. But all the recommendations, diplomas, and coffee stains couldn't cover the incident. Alice knew that. Mrs. Blois's eyes narrowed as she reached the bottom of the fifth page of the paper, and Alice's gut squeezed. A numb pang shot through her as she...

I heard the news that morning. More than half the nation was in mourning because the King of Xavia had passed away in the night. In other words, my father passed away.
The king's guards had arrived at our door at around six. They took me into the kitchen and told me what happened. It had been in his sleep. The doctors were called and tried to do everything they could but it was too late. His heart had...

He sits in silence with the grave, emotions tumbling through his heart until they burst out of his mouth in a torrent of speech.

“Right before you left, you told me that it was okay and I'd find somebody else to share the weight of the world with. I was devastated. I cried the entire night, I didn't get to sleep at all, but you were right all along. I found him.”

Nevaeh's mother always told her she was special. She always knew when she would be needed. Nevaeh shrugged it off most of the time... All children are special. she would think. What could I be that another child couldn't? After her mother disappeared, Nevaeh found herself turning to her mother's words more than she used too. When she was in times of trouble, her mother would come into her mind to save her, comfort her but there was once...

When we first met,
You turned the page in the book of my life and started a new chapter,
One with you in it,
And you scribble in your chicken scratch “she is to be loved”,
Our love was like a rainbow,
With ruby reds of passion
And sunflower yellows of belonging,
The warm browns of the home you made for my heart reflecting off the blues of your truth,
But that home was destroyed by the black...

In the suburban parts of New York, many decades in the future, there were monsters roaming the town. What was once a peaceful town has become the heart of chaos. These monsters suddenly began to appear without a reason, and the city began to evacuate. They believed was no hope for the residents to be saved.
However, high school students Selene Raymond, Wendy Bellamy, Elizabeth Kanda, and Louise Lane had suddenly received powers from a small, unknown mythical being named...

God this is boring. I had always wanted to come out and cover the action, the war. But no one told me it would be this boring. I’m James Edwards, and I am a reporter for MSNBC. I had always wanted to be a reporter my whole life, I loved seeing the world, and I always wanted to see it and tell others about it. I got my dream job right out of college, I finished top of my class...

“Man, I can’t believe you're turning 17 in a couple of days,” Brooklin said applying her tan foundation. She looked over to Lyric and shook her head, letting her bleached dreadlocks sway side-to-side. “And you still don’t have your driver’s license.” Lyric shook her head while curling her eyelashes. She opened her mouth to speak but heard the front door of her house slam.
“We’re here, y’all!” Tuscan, a friend of the pair, walked into the house with his girlfriend,...

"Mission control, do you copy?" "Mission Control?"
The year 3002, Starma was a girl from the planet Armidole. She was just becoming 18 when invaders took out the barrier and attacked. Her and her family were forced to flee, being shot out of the planet, exceeding speeds up to 44,000 miles per hour.
Her and her family were rescued by a group of other family's that had flee'd from Armidole. When they met up they had an abundance...

“Antonio,” the stranger hissed.
“General Drake,” Antonio muttered with the same contempt. “For what do I owe the pleasure?”
The assassins had stopped fighting, leaving Lance to rip the blade from the older brother’s grip. The assassins stood straight for the general, their brother’s body lying still on the ground behind them.
“I think you know why,” the stranger answered, his eyes locking on Raina. “Of course, that would go against your honor, wouldn’t it father?”
Raina’s eyes widened...

Dear Diary, November 2
We used to pretend we were lovers. Emily and I. I guess that’s kind of obvious. But I’ve just never put it into words before. It’s true, though. We laughed together. We cried together. We never kissed, but since when was that a requirement? I don’t really know. It’s hard to explain.
Emily Wellington was the best person I’ve ever met, probably. Definitely. I met her in 2econd grade. I think we kind of became friends...

What would happen if something big, something massive changed your world in another perspective?
I, Kenna Simpkins was never lucky. Ever. I always forgot my homework, woke up late for school, and even cracked my glasses once a week. I never had friends. Everyone stands at least a foot away from me, scared for getting the “bad luck’s curse.” I was different. I was different in another way from anybody else. I was lucky, just in a bad way.
One thing I concluded about my...

Today was truly a beautiful day. The sun was shining high above the towering skyscrapers of Reedson, the people were talking cheerily amid the stalls set up around the town square and I had a knife up my sleeve as I thought about who to threaten. Truly a beautiful day.
I wandered to a stall selling apples, or, more accurately, horrible mock-ups of the fruits that existed centuries before I was born. They had the taste and texture of candle...

The sunshine couldn’t melt the mist that morning. The white blanket descended in the early hours and clung to the grass blades. As people rose to perform their daily chores, the mist lapped at their ankles and nipped at their toes. It was an odd but expected rarity. Strange things always happened on the Day of the Choosing. Rumor had it that on the last Day of the Choosing, flowers with green petals and purple stems grew, and the sheep...

Astrid stared, disgusted at the body at her feet. she quickly dropped her dagger and nervously ran her fingers through her hair. forgetting the fact that her hands were coated with the cursed witch's blood. She quickly pulled her hands away and surveyed her surroundings that had been her homefor the past two years. She reached up to run her hands through her hair again just barely remembering in time that they were filthy. Astrid started, studying for a...

I stared intently into his eyes, trying to find some meaning within the flickering pupils. Their faded black clouded his face, hiding whatever it was that had kept him ticking away inside the vacancy of his expression for so long. As I watched, a juddering cigarette rose to his lips and released a puff of faltering smoke. Wisps seeped from his chapped mouth and shifted across his face, dragging jewels down his cheeks....